Episode 96: 5 Things To Think About Before Having Another Child or Raising A Child While Running A Business
TRIGGER WARNING: Please skip this episode if you are sensitive to the topic of having a child or pregnancy in general.
In this coaching episode with Fiona, she talks about her experience in raising her first son and her challenges in having another child. Listen now as talks about the 5 things every small business owner needs to consider when having another child (or raising a child) while running a business.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Fiona’s experience
5 Things to consider when having another child (or raising a child) while running a business
#1 Figure out your money.
#2 Figure out how much time you want off
#3 Cultivate your support network
#4 Figure out your business as usual marketing and the campaign marketing
#5 Things just might not go to plan and you just have to be open to it.
Conclusion
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Episode transcript:
TRIGGER WARNING: Please skip this episode if you are sensitive to the topic of having a child or pregnancy in general.
But yeah, the main thing with money is sit down and figure out how much do you need to bring in whilst you're off to keep things running, how much does your business already provide into your lifestyle? And then what other avenue for money is there? So there might be welfare. There might be shares that you have. There might be other ways that you can bring money into your life really, whilst you're off on maternity leave.
Hello and welcome to episode 96 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you are listening to this in real time, it is Thursday, the 6th of May and where I am in Australia, at least this coming Sunday is Mother's Day. And I wanted to talk about something in today's coaching episode that will infect all parents, but particularly mothers who are working and running their own business. Now, before I jump into today's episode, I wanted to kind of put out a trigger warning. I guess, if you are in the throws of trying to conceive and perhaps it's not going to plan, and you don't really want to sit and listen to a podcast about newborns, children, running a business with a baby, then feel free to switch this off, go and listen to something else or go back and, you know, binge on 95 episodes. Prior to this one, I have been in those shoes. I have done that at times to protect myself. So please turn it off. If you are in that situation or perhaps you're in a situation where you would absolutely love to have a child, but for whatever reason, it's just not happening or perhaps all sorts of reasons. So I just wanted to put that out today. I will be talking about pregnancy and having a child and what it's like to run a business after that. So yeah, just wanted to put that out. It may be very confronting for some people, so totally feel free to switch off, go listen to some good music, put yourself into a different mindset. And if that is not you, then yeah, keep listening and we can get into today's coaching episode with me, Fiona Killackey.
So I am a mother of two. I do talk about it occasionally on social media. And I'd probably talk about it more in this podcast. If you have my book, Passion, Purpose, Profit, you would have read about that as well. So I have two children, both boys. I have one who is eight and one who is almost two. So quite a bit of a gap between them. And I'll get into that in a second, but I've also been running my business. This is my sixth year in business. So I started it when my son was two, almost three and my eldest. And during the course of it, we got pregnant with our second child and he was born in the middle of 2019. So I have definitely had to do the juggle, you know, the whole juggle is real with children and running a business and trying to figure that out.
And I've also seen very different, you know, situations where in the first case I was working for a company, so I got maternity leave. And the second case I was working for myself and it was very different. I did not have a year off. That was just like, "Oh yeah, I'll just go to the park all day and hang out in the coffee shops with my friends" Yeah, definitely was very, very different running my own business and having a child. So I wanted to talk about that today because I do get asked often, how do you make it work? And firstly, I have an incredibly supportive husband, Jerome, who he really does share the load. And so, you know, I have to put that out there. I'm definitely not, doing this all by myself. And really my hat goes off to all the single parents out there who are raising children and, you know, not just running a business, just raising children and having to work at the same time, let alone running a business.
And I have some incredible clients that are in that situation and I'm always in awe of everything they're able to do. So yeah. I want it to go through kind of five things to consider if you are pregnant right now, or perhaps your partner is pregnant and you're thinking, how is the business going to run once this child comes along? Even if you're thinking of having children at some point in the future, and you're like, how would I actually run a business with young children? Or if you are like me and you have young children right now, and potentially you're thinking about having another and you're sort of wondering, Oh my gosh, how is that going to work? So I was going to go through five things to think about before having another child. And also I think they will just be relevant, even if you have children right now, or if you have children and you are working for somebody else, but you're thinking of starting your own business.
So yeah, just to tell you a bit more about my kind of journey, becoming a mum, I got pregnant really easily with our first, we got pregnant. I should say we were living in London at the time I was working for Amazon and I'd actually knew I wanted to have a child. And so I was working at Amazon. And then actually just before I found out I was pregnant, I had already applied for a part-time job at Audible, which is also owned by Amazon. That's why I was like, I was still working for Amazon, but I wasn't at Amazon. I was at audible in the UK and that was three days a week. And so, and that was in London, whereas Amazon was in []. So it was very, it was a long way to get to each day really long commute.
And so I was pregnant at audible very early into my days at audible. And yeah, I worked three days a week, audible. Yeah. It was just, it was just a great place to, if I needed to be pregnant anywhere, it was a great place. So very supportive. They had a lot of policies in place and yeah, it was a, it wasn't a long ride from my home. It was all very comfortable and rode the tube. And I remember back then you used to get a badge that said baby on board. So you could put it on your jacket or whatever. And people would sometimes give up their seat. Plenty of times they didn't, they would just stare at you. Like, you're fine. You can, you can deal with it. And that's fine too. But yeah, I, so I had a really great kind of pregnancy.
I had a, I was going to be given a year off, not on full pay, but you know, it was some pay and then we had decided to move back to Australia. So we actually, I took the maternity yeah. Called most of it. And then we moved back to Australia. But in that maternity year, I did some freelance writing. I ghost wrote a book for a company in Australia about digital marketing. So it wasn't like I just stayed at home the entire time, but I definitely had so much time. I literally, I had an incredible mothers group that I'm still good friends with today. And my days would look like I'd get up, I'd have my green smoothie. I would go for a walk or a run with the baby, with my son Levi. And yeah, I'd go for a walk. I'd meet up with someone for coffee.
Sometimes I just walk to a friend's place and spend a day there. When I look back, I mean, I'm sure it was hard at times, but when I about it now, it's like, gosh, it was just this beautiful year of like spending time with my son. I would carry him everywhere. We didn't have a car in London. And so I just carry him with me and I just explore and, you know, go into town. It was just, it was just really lovely, but we did decide my husband and I, that we would go back to Australia, just the quality of life. We didn't have any relatives in the UK and definitely I shouldn't sugar coat. It, it was hard at times thinking back to, you know, no support. My son had to go back into hospital very early on. He wasn't feeding.
I had to get a lactation consultant. So yeah, it wasn't like, Oh my gosh, it's unicorns and rainbows 24/7. But I had a lot of time. I had a lot of time to bond with him too. Yeah. Work on my fitness, just everything. It was just really a really lovely time. And then we moved back to Australia and I started working full time and everything changed.
When I got pregnant the second time that was at the end of a good two to three years of trying to get pregnant and with multiple heartaches happening throughout that, we had a miscarriage. And then eventually we went down the route of IVF now having gotten pregnant so early and so quickly, the first time. And the second time I thought, you know, I can have a baby whenever I feel like it. And it took me a long time.
And I talked about it in the episode with Jolinda Johnson, where I actually worked with Jolinda as my health coach. And she really helped me change my mindset around not getting pregnant "naturally" in inverted commas. So that was kind of the context really when I got pregnant the second time, uh, sorry, the third time and had my second child, I knew that I was running my business. I was not going to have a whole year off. I was not, it just, wasn't going to have the lifestyle that I had when I was in London. And so I had to put things in place and what I wanted to go through. It was the five things that I really sat down, stick it out as much as I could before he came along so that I had some sort of structure and it wasn't a complete chaotic mess.
And of course, anyone with a newborn knows that at times it definitely falls into chaotic mess territory, but I did as much as I could beforehand so that I could take some time off and really just be with him because you don't know what a child is like, you have no idea. You can do all the planning in the world, but until that child comes into the world, you have no idea if they're going to need more support, if you're going to have to stay in hospital, if there's any complications, if feeding will happen or not happen, if you don't want it to happen, all sorts of things will happen. And you definitely need a period of time. I believe to just be with that and to be enclosed in your little kind of family bubble. So yeah, I sat down and worked on these five things that I'll go through because working on them definitely helped me feel more secure in taking that time off and sort of stepping out of the business for a while. So let's get stuck into them, shall we?
1. Map out your money. Now I work with so many small business owners and I'm in my sixth year of this. And I can count on one hand, the amount of small business owners I've worked with for whom money is not a concern. So the bulk majority of people who have a business or a starting a business, do have some concern that the money that they make in that business has to also support their life. So it could be paying for childcare. It could be putting other kids through school. It could be, you know, looking after relatives, outside of the immediate family, just paying household, bill - electricity, gas, it could be paying for the rent paying mortgage. So the first thing to think about if you're considering having a child and you're running a business or even, you know, second or third child, and you're now running your business, like in my instance is to sit down and map out your money.
What would you like like to do in terms of time off, perhaps for some people they're like, you know what, I don't want to take any time off and you know, I'm just going to make it work. Other people might say, you know, I want six months off or I want nine months off or even a year off, or perhaps it's three months off. And then I go back part-time. So firstly, figure out what is the money that you would need if you were to take off six months, you know, how much is your business currently putting into your lifestyle?
And, you know, even things like paying your wages of staff that you have. Are those people going to stop working for you? Will they go down and reduced hours? Would they actually go and more hours because they're covering parts of your job as well. So that's what you're going to have to think about first - money mapping. So when I was coming into having our second child, I really sat down and thought about, okay, how much time do I want to take? And I'll talk to that in a little bit more detail in a second. But also the money, like how much does my business bring into our family? And what does it look like for that amount of money to keep coming in? If I am not available to work one-on-one and this really goes back to kind of knowing your revenue streams and where your money is coming from.
And I talk about that a lot on this podcast, in my book, everything, I also have a one hour mini course on money mapping. And you can find that over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop. But yeah, it's really about figuring out, say for me, the revenue streams that don't include my physical time. So for instance, I do one-on-one coaching. I do group coaching, those things take up my time. I do strategy sessions with clients that takes up my time. Online courses for some of them such as, you know, money mapping that I've just mentioned. Those are all automated behind the scenes. So if someone buys the course, they get sent an email about it. They get sent another orientation email, they get access to the course and they're on their way. I don't actually have much to do with that at all.
So, whereas other courses such as Marketing For Your Small Business, I do have a little bit more to do with that. So it was about mapping out. Okay. What are the things that don't require my time? First of all, which is the courses, how can I up the sales of those things happening so that they kind of counterbalance the time that I would have been spending coaching and the money that would have come in from one-on-one coaching? Because I won't be able to, because I want to take time off after I have this child. So I hope that makes sense. The first thing is to really sit down, do a retrospective. How much is your business currently, or has it been bringing into your life? How much does your business need to make to just survive? And in my money mapping video, I go through, you know, your survive and your thrive figure.
You really want to be clear on that survive figure. How much does the business need just to stay afloat that is paying for even subscriptions of tools that you use. So in our business, we pay for Calendly, which is a scheduling tool. We pay for Kajabi, which is where our courses are situated on. I have a virtual assistant that needs to get paid. Even if I take time off, I have a podcast editor. So all of those things come into the survive figure for the business. And that's the first thing you want to think about. What is the survive figure? How much money does my business also bring into my lifestyle? So am I responsible for paying for half the rent? Am I responsible for paying for the car insurance, all of these things, and then figure out what does that look like on a monthly basis?
So you might come up with, okay, the business just to survive needs $10,000 a month, or the business just to survive needs $2,000 a month or 25,000, who knows, but you want it come up with that figure first. And it might be a bit daunting, especially if you've never done it before, but it's super important to help you with the next steps.
So again, if you want to dive into money mapping, you can do that over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop. You can also go back and listen to episode 28 of this podcast, which was a coaching episode all about mapping out your money. But yeah, the first thing is, figure out the money in with that as well. You want to be thinking about anything areas that you might be getting money from. So depending on where you are in the world and what sort of welfare is set up in some places you will be eligible for, you know, money from the government whilst you're off on maternity leave or paternity leave in Australia, where I am, I was kind of surprised to figure out, I just didn't think it was going to be applicable to me, but it was so in Australia you do get 18 weeks.
I think it is. I could be wrong at minimum wage. So the government will pay you that whether you work for yourself, whether you're as you know, employed. And then if you're employed, you may also have extras on top that your business, that your company provides. And this is also a good time that if you have staff and you don't have a maternity leave policy, if you're getting pregnant and going off, you know, what is the example that you're setting for other people? So it could be a good time to look at that too. But yeah, the main thing with money is sit down and figure out how much do you need to bring in whilst you're off to keep things running, how much does your business already provide into your lifestyle? And then what other avenue for money is there? So there might be welfare. There might be shares that you have. There might be other ways that you can bring money into your life, really whilst you're off on maternity leave. So that's the first thing, figure that part out, because believe me, it will alleviate a lot of stress later on.
2. The time. And I know the first point, the second point could kind of be interchangeable because you'll need to, how much time you went off to figure out how much money you need. But I actually think that figuring out the money first is going to allow you to be realistic in terms of time off. So all babies are different. I have two children and I'm sure anyone that has children will tell you just because the first child did this doesn't mean the second one is now, as I've talked about earlier in this episode, my first experience having a child in the UK, it was incredibly different to having another child here in Australia.
Firstly, I mean, there was pros and cons of both of them, but the big thing was that I was working for somebody else in the UK and I had maternity leave. Whereas I was not doing that in Australia. I was working for myself. But the other thing is with babies, you just, there's no guarantee that when they come out, they're going to be able to feed the way that you want them to feed or sleep or all manner of other things. Even down to support, you might have one child and you know, you've got a whole lot of family support and you might wait three, four years for the next child. And by that time, maybe things have changed with where people live, where your family's health is at. And so you don't have the same level of support even in you're in the same country.
So there's so many things to think about, but when it comes to time, you really want to consider how much time do I want, how much time would I be happy with? And again, it doesn't need to be okay, I'm coming out of the business for six months, full time. It could be I'm coming out of the business full-time for three months. And then I'm going to spend the next three months working X amount of hours per week in the business. And then the next six months working, you know, whatever suits you now, of course, everyone will have very different opinions on this and there's no right or wrong. There's no, Oh, you're a better parent. If you took this much time off versus somebody else, it's totally dependent on what you would like to do and your needs as a family. So I, in my business, the first time I got pregnant with Levi, I took the full year off.
It was amazing. I breastfed him for 11 months. It was really good. As I talked about before the second child that we had, he didn't feed so well. He had to go into hospital. He had all sorts of kind of issues at the start, which was quite scary. It was a lot of time and trying to figure these things out, trying to get help, trying to get support. I was also dealing with having a very elderly father who, whose health had gone downhill. So there was a lot of stuff that I wanted to be able to do. So I said to myself, there is no way at all that I'm talking to any clients for at least three months. And after that potentially up to six months. So business coaching is one of my revenue streams. So that's quite a chunky one. So I had to really think about, okay, what does that look like?
So I actually had created a group coaching program and I had put that out there. I got people in, I had interviewed them. They were all locked in to start in September. My son was born at the end of June. And so that I think we started actually the end of September or early October group coaching, but group coaching allowed me to say, okay, you know what, I'm going to work for one hour, every fortnight with the group coaching group, and I'm not going to do anything else. And I knew that the money that was coming in from group coaching could supplement the online courses and other things. And I also knew that I was going to take a little bit of a dip in earnings because I was coming off. But I knew that I'd then have at least three months completely to bond with this child to just, you know, recover all of these things.
You know, it's a massive thing for your body to go through being pregnant and having a child. And then I had another three months after that where I only took on a certain amount of clients. So I really only worked what about four hours, one day, every fortnight. And I know a very privileged position to be able to do that. And again, we had amazing support of my partner, but I mapped that out as this is the ideal. I had no idea what my child would be like if he'd be a great sleeper and easy feeder. And so I just had to roll with it. So with the timeline, you've worked out the money, the time one is what is the good, better, best, you know, what is the minimum that I absolutely, they went off what is good, you know? And what's the best.
So for me, it was, I want three months off. Absolutely. That's the minimum I need three months off. And then six months was I can work a little bit, but I'm going to save my time. And then ideally 12 months before I really came back into working three days, well, really I still work three days before I had him. I was working four days. So yeah, I haven't actually got back to four days. The other thing that I had was my book at the time. So, and I've talked about this before in other episodes, I had my book deal. It was all confirmed in July. I had to give them the first chapter by the end of September, my son was born at the end of June. So really when he was a newborn, I had to do quite a bit of work on the book.
So in, I think the first couple of months, I didn't really do anything in September when the first chapter was due. That's when I got started. Yup. Totally left it to the last minute and did that. Yeah. First chapter. And then I had about two months between that chapter and the end of November, which was when the full manuscript was too. So in that two months, we did hire him nanny to give me four hours a week to write. And that's what we did. And that's how I mapped it out. And again, I know very privileged position to be in, but time is so important. And I know people say this and I used to hate it. Cause sometimes it made you feel really guilty as a working mum in particular, but you don't get the time back, you know, you don't yeah. Get that time, you know, so really look at your business and consider how could the business keep going so that I can have that time.
And I'm not gonna feel guilty later on. And on the similar note, if you are someone who absolutely loves your business and it's a huge part of you, don't feel guilty about not taking X amount of time off, but really sit down and think about what's important to you speak with your partner. If you have one speak with your family, if you haven't with your friends, if they are going to be an active support for you and say, this is what I'd like to do. This is my plan. This is how I think it would work and cut back on things that you may need to cut back on expenses, but this is what I'd like to do. And I'd like your support. And I think that's a big thing. And I know that Jolinda Johnson talked about it in a recent episode where she asked, talked about, you know, receiving help and that often people want to give you that help, but we're not open to receiving it.
So that's a big thing with time as well, consider, you know, your good, better, best, but then also consider is there support around me that I can ask for? So again, very privileged to have a great mother-in-law who was able to come and help us as well, and still helps us a day a week with the business and our children. So absolutely couldn't have done this. It does take a village. So if you are in a position, even if you're like us in London, when we didn't have any family support and a lot of our good friends were back in Australia, we didn't ask for help. And I wish sometimes we could have, and that those times I also wasn't working. My husband, wasn't working that much at the time cause he was modeling and we had a really great lifestyle, but I do think that having a child, especially if you're running a business, you do need to ask for support.
So the first step is to figure out the money. Second step is to figure out the time and remember that good, better, best. How much would I like us? What is the absolute non-negotiable? And then what's the absolute best ideal scenario for me and my family.
3. Support network, which kind of carries on from what I've just been saying. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, thank you so much. You may have heard episode eight, which was a coaching episode and it was all about cultivating your crews as a small business owner. I talk about that a lot in my book, Passion, Purpose, Profit. There's a whole section about this and it's downloadables and activities that you can do, but basically cultivating your crews is about building an amazing support network around your business. And I talk about sort of five different types of crews that you can have.
So if you haven't checked it out after listening to this one, go back and listen to episode eight of this podcast. But the same rule applies when you're thinking of having a baby and you know, running a business. And I said, I just spoke to earlier. It's about making sure that you've got people around you to support your goals and to help you, but also about you being open to receive that help. So when it comes to running a business and a child with a child and a child, I guess you do run them in a way you really want to be thinking about who is it that you can lean on for different things. So for instance, you might have somebody who's working very casually in your business and you might think, you know what, as part of my overall to have this amount of time off with my child, I would like to update their time that they work in the business.
So you might talk to that casual person that's working casually and sort of say, what would a part-time role look like for you and what could be involved in that? You might also have business friends who have done this, who maybe have children and have had to work through this. And so that's part of your support crew that you can go to and sort of ask those questions because, you know, I'm sure I'm going to annoy people listening to this, unless you're a parent, you cannot understand the demands on a parent. That, that sounds I'm sure. I'm sure someone will DM me saying that's totally not true, but unless you are a parent and I mean that in terms of biological pay parent step parent, guardian grandparent, who spends a lot of time with the children, you just can't. And so you need people around you too, that do understand that, that completely understand that and also understand running a business.
I talk about this in my book. When I first started my business, I had an amazing friend, I still have an amazing friend, Chris Mannix who runs soda communications. And she was instrumental in me starting my own business and has been there so much of the way. Every time I've had a question, she also has two children and her children are slightly older than my children. And so I've always looked at her for that advice as well. Like how do you juggle it? What about this part? What about when they start school? And you know, you've got to work school hours. How have you done that? So I think in your support network, it's really important that you have those friends who have children, but are also in the same boat as you, they might run their own business as well, because you'll also have friends who have children who don't have the demands that you have because they're not a small business owner.
So in your support network is firstly looking at your work at your business itself and thinking about, okay, who can I go to for advice or help, who also runs a business and also has children who in my business already am I looking to potentially increase their hours? So the business keeps running and I can trust those people, but in your support network, outside of business, you've also got to think about people who are going to help. If your child gets sick and has to stay home from childcare, you have to look at the actual childcare that you're looking to. So it might be daycare. It could be a nanny. It could be, you know, grandparents, all sorts of things, if you're lucky enough to have them. So that is also part of your support network. And then you're going to have another network, which is also part of what I talk about in the book, which is your name on work network.
I'd be thinking about who are going to be the friends that I can just absolutely vent to, cry, to share my stresses with. And they're just going to completely accept me. And it's not always going to be about the business. It could be about, you know, the lifestyle changes because my goodness, they really happen after you have a child. So in your support crew, you want to be thinking about your work as in your business. Who's in that crew? You've got to think about the actual physical support around the house and with the child that you'll need. And that also might include a cleaner if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford a cleaner. So looking at that, it could also be, you know, accepting help of meals or looking at meal delivery, kind of companies that you might use for awhile. Then the third part is your non-network network.
So who are the crew that you're going to go to that can really help you with the life adjustments that come with being a parent. Now, of course, you know, people will maybe cross over into all three, but if you can sit down and really pepper out a plan of who are these three groups who's in them, how can I kind of talk to them and how am I going to let them know that I need them. And also that I'm here for them as well. Cause it's reciprocated. So that's the support network.
4. Consider your business as usual and campaign marketing. So I talk about these two elements quite a lot when I work with clients and in any of the courses that I run, you've got in marketing, I also talk about, you've got your moneymaking marketing and your brand building marketing, but within both of those, you've got business as usual marketing.
So for me, this podcast is business as usual. So it's something that happens all the time. All year round. This podcast comes out twice a week, every week. I also have a Sunday email that comes out every week. I have various, you know, posts on Instagram. I have other things that I'm doing behind the scenes. I have a Good Business Group. We have an expert come in once a month. So all of those things are business as usual, and I need to map those things out. So when I decided to, when we decided, and we're lucky enough to have our second child, I thought about, okay, the time and the money and my support network, but then I sat down and thought, okay, and have this much time fully off my business. Not, you know, at the last minute writing emails on a Sunday, fully off, then how many emails need to get written.
So I need to batch create that before I go on maternity leave. I also, at the time I didn't have my podcast so that wasn't in it, but I did have Instagram posts. I did have kind of direct marketing that I was doing automations email funnels. We had courses that were going out for the first time, so that all had to be mapped into firstly, what does that look like? And then what can be cold from that? What is not essential? What is like a nice to have, but if it doesn't exist, it's okay. So for instance, social media, if that isn't updated every single day, we'll be fine. Whereas if we don't send a Sunday email, it will really make an impact. So which is negative on our business. So I sat down and thought, okay, if I'm going to have three to six months off, what is that like 24 emails that need to be written 26 emails?
And what do they look like? And where are they leading to? Which brings me to campaign marketing. So you've got your business as usual or your BAU marketing, and then you've got campaign marketing. Now I would advise, not running a campaign in the middle of taking maternity leave unless you are taking, you know, a full year, the full six months. But I, I ran a big campaign for my first course marketing for your small business just before I went on maternity leave. And that was quite a lot of work. And so I ran that and then I went on maternity leave and I'm really glad that I had my group coaching set up. I had clients set up, I had the courses and the automation emails set up because I just didn't have it in me whilst I was having a newborn and the issues that we had around that and not sleeping to run a campaign, but you may be different or it might just be that the time that you're taking off for your child for your child's birth happens to fall right before Christmas or Hanukkah or eat, or, you know, some big celebration that's important for your audience.
And so you just absolutely can't ignore that part of the campaign. So I would look at again, just like business as usual marketing, what the essentials for that campaign, what can I create now? What may I need to spend an hour creating even after I've had the child in my maternity leave and that might be Instagram videos, it could be a couple of posts for Facebook, but you don't want to overload yourself with stuff or be in the foolish idea that, Oh, when I have a baby, like they sleep all the time, I'll have all this time to do it. You won't like, believe me, you will not. That is a myth. So you might batch create as much as you can. And then again, going back to your support networks, it might be getting help from somebody else. It could be, you know, upping the hours of someone that works for you so that they can take care of these other elements that need to be done closer to the date.
So that's the fourth part really think about what is the business as usual marketing that you need to do? What is the content you'll need to put out? And what is the campaign marketing? What do you absolutely need to do? What's essential and what would be nice to have, and then the nice to have. Is there anyone else that can support me if you are thinking, Oh my gosh, how would I come up with 26 email ideas? Or how can I batch create a whole lot of content? I've just find it really difficult to come up with content ideas. I do have a content calendar. You can purchase it at my daily business, coach.com forward slash shop. And that gives you over a hundred content ideas for social media, for email newsletters, for podcasts, whatever it is that you produce. And we'll link to that in the show notes.
5. So that is step four and step five and probably the most important thing to keep in mind if you are planning to expand your family or start a family. And also I should mention you might be starting a family in all sorts of ways, surrogacy, foster, caring, you know, adopting. There's so many different ways to start a family and every single one of them is amazing. But step five is important, no matter how you plan your family. And that is that nothing goes to plan. Children are not robots. We cannot calculate exactly what they're going to do. Any parent will tell you that even if your child is really predictable in say sleeping or something else that just overnight, it can change. It could be super predictable for 18 months and then bang overnight, everything changes or they're really into, you know, vegetables and other great things.
And then suddenly they're not, that's just the nature of things. And with business, especially if you're similar to me, like I like planning, obviously that is something that might become very obvious. If you are listening to these podcasts or you work with me or you've read my book, but yeah, I'm really somebody who does plan, who does like to stay organized. I don't always, you know, I'm definitely a bit of a mess sometimes behind the scenes, but I like to aspire to that. And I think with children, what they have taught me most is that you just cannot plan. There is just so much uncertainty. They have, you know, they are little people, they have minds of their own, they have wills of their own, they are determined. And if they want something that has to be, you know, your priority sometimes. So keep that in mind.
I planned, you know, definitely before I had my second child, I did a lot of planning and I think it really helped a bulk of it really helped. It also helped just with mental health and alleviating pressure. But my second child came out and as I've discussed, it was challenging. There was definitely things that were challenging. Even six months after my son was born, my father passed away and that was unexpected. So, you know, and then we went right into COVID. So yeah, really, really fun time there. And of course, I know I'm incredibly privileged in so many ways and you know, I wasn't in the U S I wasn't in India, Brazil, or so many other places that have had it far, far worse than Australia, but yeah, number five is really about knowing that the best laid plans just make sure that there's room to move and that you don't put so much pressure on yourself that, you know, the smallest thing is going to unravel you because believe me, you have enough stuff to be worried about when you are a new parent, let alone, you know, your business stuff.
And I guess the four points ahead of this, and to recap,
#1 Figure out your money.
#2 Figure out how much time you want off and what that will mean for you in terms of good, better, best
#3 Cultivate your support network and ask for help and be open to receiving help when people offer it
#4 Figure out your business as usual marketing and the campaign marketing, and then look at what can be cold.
#5 Things just might not go to plan and you just have to be open to it. That is life. And I think so much of the pressure that comes onto new parents is often put on themselves by expecting that things are somehow going to be controlled and that they can figure it out.
And if they could just master this thing, then everything else will fall into line. Unfortunately, that's just not how it is. We are all human. And, you know, like I said before, we're not robots and children are not robots and you just have to work with however they come out and whatever their personality is. And I'm speaking from experience because the first time I had a child, I really, I can't believe I'm going to admit this, but I really did think that if I could just get it into some sort of formula or framework or if I could just, you know, I remember having an Excel sheet open and putting in every time he slept and how many poos he did and how many times he went to the toilet and, and it was just exhausting. And I don't know what I was expecting from documenting every single thing, but I put a lot of pressure on myself and I kept just thinking, Oh, well, if I could just figure out the solution and the solution is that there is no like set path.
I threw out for the second child. I threw out every single parenting book that it voraciously read the first time, because none of them worked for me. They all made me feel worse about myself. And the second time I just thought, you know what, I've got my business set up so that I don't feel so much pressure. I know that there's money coming in. I know that I can take off at least three to six months feeling good. And that helped me because I knew that I just had to go with the flow. I just had to do whatever needed to be done. And, you know, whether that meant trying to pump, whether it meant going and seeing lactation consultants, whether it meant, you know, sitting on the couch, doing absolutely nothing, except holding my child for six hours straight, whatever I had to do, I was able to do it because the things in my business had been set up.
But also because I took the pressure off of myself that I definitely had had there the first time. So to recap, again, figure out your money, figure out your time, figure out and cultivate a support network, figure out your business as usual and campaign marketing. And then finally remember that nothing goes to plan and that is Parenthood in a nutshell. And that should just be the mantra. Nothing goes to plan. So that is it for today's episode. I hope that if you are in the throws of planning, a family, starting a family, expanding a family in all sorts of glorious ways that these tips have helped.
And if you know somebody else who is in that position, perhaps you might want to share this episode with them as always, you can find the show notes over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/96 as this is episode 96. And of course the things that I mentioned in this episode that you can buy such as the content calendar are all available over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop. I would love to know what you took away from this. I would love to know if you're a parent and you juggle business and family, how you do that. So come on over and send me a DM I'm on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach. All right, that's it for me. I'm going to go inside and get dinner ready for my family. Bye.
Thanks for listening to My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
